How to Make Display Advertising Work for Your Small Business

Display advertising can be a great way to build brand recognition for your up and coming business, but you need to follow a few simple practices to get the most out of your online advertising dollars.

For starters, decide whether you’re after broad appeal or a narrow audience. If you’re after a targeted audience, say based on behavior or geography, your cost per thousand impressions (CPM) will be higher.

The second step, according to Tamara Weintraub of ReachLocal, is to create compelling banner ads with a clear call to action. Make your ads clean, bold and visually appealing, and make sure you let consumers know what your value proposition is or highlight a compelling feature. And make it clear what they get for clicking on the ad, like “get a quote” or “sign up for a free trial.”

And if you do all that right, make sure the “landing page” you send them to is well targeted and to the point.